Elis excel on beam, need help elsewhere

Four gymnastics teams showed up in New Hampshire for the Fox Run Invitational, but there were just two that dominated the individual events and the final standings.

The University of New Hampshire hosted Penn State, William & Mary and Yale in quad match largely dominated by the Nittany Lions and the home team. The 18th-ranked Penn State squad won the meet with a team score of 195.275, followed closely by UNH (194.225) and somewhat less closely by Yale (189.100) and William & Mary (186.750).

GeYang

Allison Mak '10 competes on the beam against Penn on Jan. 26. She recorded a 9.725 on the beam in New Hampshire this Saturday.

The commanding performances by the top two squads played out clearly in the individual finishes. The top four spots of the four different events — vault, uneven parallel bars, balance beam and floor exercise — were all held by a Penn State or UNH athlete. A trio of Nittany Lions also held the top three all-around spots.

Yale’s Alina Liao ’09 took fifth in the all-around, although she could finish no better than 10th individually in the meet’s four events. Kristen Campbell ’08 and Lauren Tatsuno ’09 took the highest spots of any Eli in an individual event, both recording a score of 9.725 in the balance beam.

Campbell and Tatsuno have performed well on the beam throughout the season, although it has traditionally been Liao and Allison who lead the charge on the beam for the Bulldogs. Liao and Mak contributed to the tune of 9.625 and 9.650 points, respectively. Their additions, along with the help of Laura Lombardi ’08, propelled the Elis to the highest team beam score of the season.

Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, performances in the other events were less than inspiring and left Yale with little chance of catching Penn State and UNH. Outside the beam, only Tatsuno was able to capture a spot in the top nine of an individual event. She scored a solid 9.725, putting her 0.150 behind UNH’s Taryn LaFountain, who won the event.

The Elis will now return home to take on Rutgers this Saturday. Two weeks from now, Yale will head to upstate New York to participate in the Ivy League Classic hosted by Cornell.